Wielding her trademark pink boxing gloves, Democrat Roxanne Donnery called the budget speech Diana delivered Friday a "political tirade" and insisted her colleagues table sale discussions for two years to give new management time to improve Valley View's finances.

"Give us two years," Donnery declared. "Get rid of the management company that has almost financially destroyed this wonderful facility."

Republican Mike Anagnostakis presented several charts of figures to lay out a surprisingly simple response to Diana's proposal to fund Valley View only for January in his 2013 budget.

He argued that with a cheaper administration, $6 million in anticipated aid and revenue increases suggested by a recent investigation, the county could run Valley View for all of 2013 for the same $7.5 million Diana budgeted for a single month.

"Doing anything other than keeping Valley View under this scenario does not make sense," Anagnostakis said.

With the budget Diana presented on Friday, lawmakers must either accede to his proposal and likely take up one of the three remaining sale offers for the home; or else add funding for Valley View before Nov. 15 and reaffirm that support in December by overriding Diana's veto, since he has promised to reject any budget amendments for Valley View.

In a telephone interview Wednesday, Diana denied that Valley View could be run for a full year with $7.5 million in county taxes and reinforced his own dire predictions, saying, "We are close to the edge of bankruptcy," if the county continues running the 360-bed facility.

Diana also defended the management contractor he hired to run Valley View 10 years ago, saying the contractor had found ways to save more than $1 million.

A major difference in the conflicting Valley View figures is that Anagnostakis includes $6 million in annual aid known as an intergovernmental transfer. Diana omits it because the money hasn't arrived yet, although a state Department of Health spokesman said Wednesday that the state plans to release the money before the end of the year.

Warwick Supervisor Mike Sweeton, a Republican like Diana, who is planning to run for county executive next year, attended Wednesday's news conference and said afterward that he supports the idea of a two-year sale moratorium, provided the county lowers its funding for Valley View to $7.5 million next year and $5 million in 2014.

He argued that the Legislature's recent Valley View investigation provided evidence that those cuts could be achieved.

Chester Supervisor Steve Neuhaus, another Republican candidate for county executive, said that two years is too long to wait, and suggested it would be more productive to gather representatives from all sides to end the continuing confusion over Valley View's cost.

"The most important thing you need to do is restore the credibility on all counts," he said. "The public trust has been lost in this whole entire process."